The Phantom of Bitter Mountain
by phanwank
Summary: Zoe's a normal teenage girl with a bit of a crush on the Phantom, its true!lol with normal problemsthat all changes when her highschool puts on the play and her life mysteriously begins to follow the classic love story! readreview plz!
1. Summer's End

**A/N: It's a new story! I know I need to update teh other one, and i totally will--but this one was too good to leave alone!

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Zoe Michaels ran down the stairs, skidding in her sock feet across the hallway at the bottom.

"Whoooooooooo!" She paused and held her arms in front of her in a graceful circle. She cleared her throat, closed her cerulean eyes and waited a moment for the music on her iPod to catch up.

_In sleep he sang to me_

_In dreams he came_

_That voice which speaks to me_

_And calls my name_

Zoe's voice was young and clear; she hit each note with a crystaline soprano. Taking and elastic band from her thin wrist, she crammed her thick chestnut curls into a loose but becoming bun.

Zoe skipped ahead to Point of No Return on her iPod and let Gerard Butler's smooth baritone fill her head.

Zoe sashayed into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

_I have brought you_

_That our passions may fuse and merge_

Zoe took a can of Diet Coke from the fridge and shut the door, leaning against it with her eyes closed.

_In your mind you've already succumbed to me, dropped all defenses, completely succumbed to me…_

"Take me, Gerry," she sighed.

"Okay, darlin'," said a deep voice close to her ear, an arm suddenly snaked around her waist.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuugh!" Zoe shreiked and dropped the un-opened can on her big toe. Glancing wildly around, she saw a plump blonde girl standing beside her, grinning, and she screamed again, jumping slightly.

"AAAAaaauuugh! Don't _do_ that,_ Meg_!" She took off the headphones and grimaced.

"You know you love it, _Christine_," teased Meg, or Ana as she'd been named from birth. The two best friends called each other Meg and Christine for fun, since they'd both been fanatics—or Phanatics as they were often called—since they could talk…or sing…

Deciding had been easy enough—Zoe was a curly-headed brunette, and Ana had pale, straight blond hair. Meg was the only one of the two who had ever taken ballet lessions, too, even if only for a year. Zoe was naturally graceful, but had never taken an interest in learning to dance beyond some wild gyrations at Bitter Mountain High School—"Like the opposite of Sweet Valley," Zoe often muttered, sticking out her tongue—where the girls had been attending classes for two years—making them juniors—finally!

Zoe had preferred her voice lessons for the last two years…but ever since her wonderful voice teacher, Felicity, had gotten married and moved away, Zoe hadn't had the heart to find another music teacher.

In their theater class at school, Zoe and Ana had both been used to getting one-line, chorus-y parts so far in the annual school musicals—but this year they had a fighting chance as juniors…that was if Gabrielle Marchant didn't finally have all her boot-licking to the drama teacher, Mr. Nealson, pay off.

"Come on," said Ana. "We have only a month left before school starts. We need to practice for the auditions."

"And by practice you mean sing along with the DVD?"

"I brought the mask."

"Who do you want to play?"

"Well—you're so good at being Christine," said Ana wistfully. "You be her."

"I won't if you want to," said Zoe kindly, knowing that her friend didn't often feel very glamourous because she was, well, to put it nicely she was far too friendly with Ben & Jerry sometimes.

"No," Ana shook her head. "I have the mask—besides you got your Halloween costume from last year you can use. Besides, I'm an alto, so I should be able to sing the guy-parts."

"And Meg. You can sing Meg. She's always so adorable…" offered Zoe, biting her lip and searching for a way to take the crestfallen look off Ana's face. _Damn it_, she thought. _I hate feeling like crap when Ana's so low in her self-esteem._

"Don't be silly," said Ana with a brave smile. "You can't just snap your fingers and have me be a soprano. If wishes were Phantoms, Phangirls would ride…"

Zoe giggled.

"Want a Diet Coke?"

"Sure."

"You can have the one you made me drop on my foot," said Zoe, picking up the soda off the floor. "Thanks for that—my toenail's probably gonna turn black and fall off."

"Chuh, yeah right." Ana grabbed another can from the fridge and shook it, then cracked it in front of Zoe's face.

"Aaaaaaaack!" With a retalitory grin, Zoe opened her own can and for a few minutes the kitchen was the scene of great chaos as the girls chased each other with the fizzing and hissing cans.

Eventually they collapsed at the kitchen table.

"Crap, we'll have to clean this up before my dad gets home," mourned Zoe.

The girls quickly cleaned up the kitchen and went into the backyard and hosed each other off before the cola could dry stickily on their skin and clothes. They then went to the trampoline in Zoe's backyard and jumped on it under the hot California sun, which dried them off in no time.

As they jumped, they sang at the top of their lungs as a warm up.

"How long should we two wait before we're one?" screamed Zoe.

"Who is this angel, this angel of music?" caroled Ana.

The neighbours shut their windows. The girls didn't care. If they preferred boiling with no cross-breeze to listening to the playful antics of two girls with not-bad singing voices, that was their business.

They finally went inside and down to Zoe's room in the basement, decked out with all things Phantom. Ana collapsed on the dark-crimson bedspread and panted a little.

Zoe went to the window high in the ceiling.

"Don't open the blinds," said Ana. "Turn on the aircon. It'll be dark and cool—just like the Phantom's lair."

"Ohh I forgot. Good point."

The DVD went into the player at one end of the room, and the girls had a larger than usual space in which to practice their blocking and songs.

Zoe eventually took a break and lay on her stomach on her bed, watching Ana struggling to hit the higher notes in Music of the Night. Zoe sighed heavily and drew a hand through the tangled and matted curls, cursing the fact that she had forgotten to brush them out before they had dried.

"What's wrong?" asked Ana, interrupting her song to counsel her friend.

"I wish…oh it's stupid."

"_Tell me_," prompted Ana.

"Ever since Felicity left, I've been feeling so…lost. Vocally—spiritually, almost. She was just such a great friend…especially after my mom died."

"Did you mom promise to send you an angel of music, or what?" joked Ana, trying to make light of the situation, uncomfortable with her friend's sadness, trying to help.

"Haha," said Zoe dryly. "Y'know what, just forget it."

"No, Zoe, really—if you want to talk, you know I'm here for you."

"I know," sighed Zoe. "Something's just…missing. Besides feeling lost, I just feel—blah. Like something needs to happen soon or I'll lose my mind."

"It's just that summer's nearly over and you feel edgy. We all get that way. Not exactly EAGER for school, but eager for something to happen—something to make us react, something to force us to _do_ something."

"I suppose," said Zoe, resignedly.

"Come on—it's your turn," said Ana.

"You never finished…"

"Oh don't mind that. You go ahead. You're better anyways. Do _Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again_. It fits."

"You're right…" Zoe smiled slowly and got up to practice once more.

The show must go on, she thought.

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**AN: REVWIE! XD :D**


	2. First Day of School

**A/N: Here we go! lol!

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"Zoe! Zoe! Over here!" Ana waved from the far side of the cafeteria, where she'd claimed a table by the window. As juniors they no longer had to put up with shoving themselves between the unwashed artistic kids and the unshaven pot-head hippy wannabes. Once they'd staked a claim on a table on the first day—that was that. No one challenged juniors or seniors, who managed to co-exist fairly peacefully, since several of their members engaged in a cross-pollination program of sorts. At least 25 of the junior female population were assured a place at prom as someone's date.

"Hey!" Zoe finally managed to stumbled through the crowd and drop exhaustedly into a chair beside Ana.

"How's your day been so far?" asked Ana, looking at her rice cake with distaste before biting into it.

"Absolutely horrible. Chemistry, math and gym. Then after lunch I have English and geography, ending up with theatre with you. At least I'll be able to take a leisurely shower after gym and only be a little late for lunch break."

"I don't know why you're in gym—it's not mandatory after sophomore year."

Zoe shrugged.

"I know…I just—like it, I guess. After dealing with chem and calculus, it's a good way for me to work off steam."

"I guess," shrugged Ana. Zoe looked knowingly at her friend for a moment, then concentrated on opening her container of yogurt. Gym class was not kind to girls like Ana, who preferred to "work off steam" with some curly fries.

"First day of theatre, though!" said Zoe, trying to get excited again.

"Yeah," murmured Ana. "Do you know what we're doing yet this year?" she asked after a moment.

Zoe shook her head.

"Nope. Hope it's better than the Wizard of Oz last year. Geez."

'It only sucked because they wouldn't make you Dorothy," said Ana.

Zoe shrugged.

"C'est la vie." She finished her sandwich and glanced at her watch.

"I gotta go try to find my locker—I was late this morning for homeroom and missed my assignment. See you later!"

"Bye!" said Ana as Zoe darted off. Glaring at her rice cake for a moment longer, she threw it in the trash and got in the line up for the cafeteria's famous cheesecake. She fingered the change in her pocket—her bus fare home. She could walk home instead of taking the bus…

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At last it came time for glorious, glorious theater class.

Zoe came in and settled herself in one of the fold-down seats in the back of the theater with a contented sigh.

"It's good to be back…"

Bitter Mountain had, for some unfathomable reason, been given a massive budget for theater, giving it more scope in choice of productions and better quality in design. The theater itself had been massively renovated in recent years, with all the trappings of a professional theatre—trapdoors, catwalks, and a range of possible special effects.

And yet they insisted on doing _Grease._

Zoe rolled her eyes at the memory of her first year at Bitter Mountain High.

Ana sat in the chair beside Zoe with a huff.

"Long day?"

"The longest," said Ana. "First day of biology they insisted on talking about reproduction. In whales."

"Ow."

"Yeah."

"Class, could I have your attention please?" Mr. Nealson said. Everyone kept on chatting.

"Listen up, everyone!" said Gabrielle loudly, tossing her jet-black hair over her shoulder and smiling brilliantly at Mr. Nealson. Everyone fell silent.

"I swear, if he wasn't happily married, Gabby'd have no compunctions about offering him a blowjob," muttered Ana to Zoe.

"What makes you think his pesky marital state would stop her?"

"Okay class—not much to do today, just get to know everyone all around and hand out the scripts—as usual you will not be getting your script or a working knowledge of what you are in for for the rest of the year until the end of class," said Mr. Nealson teasingly.

The class groaned collectively.

They gathered on the stage and in turn, each person would stand up and introduce themselves and give a silly useless tidbit about themselves so that people could remember them.

"No one's going to remember my name if I tell them I like borsct," whispered Zoe to Ana. "They'll call me 'that girl who likes borsct.' Besides, this is only for the freshmen…we know everyone already."

"Why don't you start, Zoe?" said Mr. Nealson. "You seem very ready to volunteer information."

"Uh…" Zoe blushed bright pink and stood up shakily.

"Geez Zoe, if you get stage fright this early on, that doesn't leave much hope for the rest of the year, does it?" joked Gabby. Zoe tried not to look at her because she was sure that if she did, Gabby would promptly burst into flames, and that'd just be an annoyance she did not need.

"I'll go first, if you need a moment—I'm new here anyway," said a low voice from across the circle.

"Thanks…" Zoe gratefully dropped back down to try and think of something to say…only to look at her rescuer and lose all mental capabilities.

Blonde hair…dark grey eyes…an amazing smile…

_Whoo boy_.

"Hi everyone, I'm Shane Moore…I just moved here from San Francisco…"

Zoe's head snapped up.

_Wait, what?_

It couldn't possibly be him. Shane…Moore…

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She'd been staying for the summer three years ago at her uncle's house in San Francisco. One day her uncle's golden lab had run through a beach volleyball game and brought Zoe and Shane together. They'd had a great time and parted at the end of the summer, promising to meet up again sometime.

Then her uncle had been transferred to Oregon and that was it.

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It was her turn again.

"I'm Zoe and…I like borsct."

Oh _God._

She retreated with Anna to their seats after the opening exercise and tuned out as Mr. Nealson went over the class rules.

"It's him," she hissed, trying not to move her lips as she was facing in Shane's direction.

"Who? Shane? Wait, that's _the_ Shane? Here?"

"Mmm."

"Does he know you're here."

"It's a big class—I don't think he'd recognize me. I've grown breasts since then. Besides, he never really looked at me."

"I'm sure he'll remember you if you just—"

"No, Meg—Ana, I swear if you call him over I will kill you."

The class was spent whispering together and finally Mr. Nealson took a pile of scripts from his bag and handed them out as people exited the theater in a line.

Zoe was so caught up in trying to simoultaneously get close to and avoid Shane that she didn't notice Ana yanking on her sleeve frantically until they were nearly out the theater doors.

"What?"

Ana mutely shoved her script's title page under Zoe's nose.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's

_The Phantom of the Opera_

It was to her credit that Zoe managed to contain her screaming until safely ensconsed in the girl's bathroom.

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**A/N: Shane Moore was totally the name of a kid I had a huuuuuge crush on in grade nine! omg--i swear I'm not lieing! He was in my theater class to! drools**


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